


all the trouble caused

by KelseyO



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, do not be alarmed by ship tags, just a conversation, post-33, this is neither fluff nor smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2671784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelseyO/pseuds/KelseyO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny almost looks taken aback as she frowns a little and tightens her camo jacket around her chest. “Man, you just get OFF on being the resident enigma, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“What I get OFF on,” Carmilla retorts as sweetly as possible, “is you minding your own damn business like Laura told you to.”</p>
<p>“Okay, first of all?” Danny begins, holding up her index finger and taking a step forward, “She told me to give her space, not look the other way. And are we really gonna talk about my weeks-old mess instead of why she’s apparently banished you from the premises? Seriously,” she continues, “enlighten me. What could you, Count Seduction Eyes, POSSIBLY have done to incur the genuine wrath of Laura Hollis?”</p>
<p>(Post-33. Carmilla runs into Danny in the woods. Title from "Let the Flames Begin" by Paramore.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the trouble caused

**Author's Note:**

> I'm rather terrible at not writing post-episode fics, aren't I?
> 
> (Amanda and Molly are great.)

She doesn’t run.

She walks, focuses on each individual step to the end of the hallway and down the stairs and out the side door; maybe to give Laura the chance to catch up to her and say that she’s mad but she _gets it_ and come back to the room and we’ll figure this out together, or maybe just because this is the first time she didn’t leave of her own volition and she’s still trying to process that this is actually, really happening.

There’s concrete below her shoes until there isn’t anymore, and she hardly notices when she hits the manicured grass or the dirt path after it. The seconds are roaring past her ears like a swarm of angry wasps and she’s still thinking about the look on Laura’s face while they watched the playback (that she forgot to delete because she’s an _idiot_ ) and how she never thought she’d be reluctant to walk away from—

“Watch where you’re going,” snaps the last (well, perhaps not _the_ last) voice she wants to hear right now as she collides with something very tall and hard and warm.

She glares up at Danny and Danny scowls down at her and for a tense beat neither of them moves, but then Carmilla rolls her eyes and steps around the angry beanstalk and continues on her way.

“What, no snappy one-liner?” Danny calls after her. “Not that I really give a damn, but are you feeling okay?”

“Never been better,” Carmilla mutters without turning around, “Just gonna go find a nice, steep cliff to jump off of.”

“Didn’t really peg you as an adrenalin junkie.”

She kicks a small stone out of her way. “No,” she sighs dully, “just profoundly unwanted in my dorm room.”

Danny lets out a single humorless chuckle behind her. “I’m sure if you just cleaned your hair out of the shower drain already—”

“You have _no_ idea what—” Carmilla snaps, turning on her heel, but as her eyes meet Danny’s she clamps her jaw shut to silence the rest of the sentence. “Forget it.”

Danny almost looks taken aback as she frowns a little and tightens her camo jacket around her chest. “Man, you just get _off_ on being the resident enigma, don’t you?”

“What I _get off_ on,” Carmilla retorts as sweetly as possible, “is you minding your own damn business like Laura told you to.”

“Okay, first of all?” Danny begins, holding up her index finger and taking a step forward, “She told me to give her space, not look the other way. And are we really gonna talk about my weeks-old mess instead of why she’s apparently banished you from the premises? Seriously,” she continues, “enlighten me. What could you, Count Seduction Eyes, _possibly_ have done to incur the genuine wrath of Laura Hollis?”

Carmilla is practically seething, her shoulders rigid as she considers all the different ways she could make Danny’s death look like an accident, but then she’s thinking about her mother using Laura’s voice to discuss the hypotheticals of Kirsch’s untimely end, and she can feel herself getting smaller and smaller until she feels about as intimidating as a toddler.

“My mother possessed her,” she says finally, quietly, surprising the both of them. “She said that if I let her use Kirsch in the sacrifice and stopped Laura from interfering any further, she would spare her.” Carmilla swallows hard and wets her lips. “So I took the deal, then refrained from sharing any of that with her, but she found the video footage…” Her eyes might as well be digging holes in the ground. “…and now I’m standing in the middle of the woods with you.”

Danny is very still. “Is she, um—is she okay?”

Carmilla shrugs a little. “The extra consciousness left her with a bit of a migraine, but she’s still feeling herself enough to hate me for what I did, so I guess that’s reassuring.”

“Welcome to the club,” Danny deadpans, “It friggin’ sucks.”

Her eyes narrow as they lift back up to Danny’s. “Are you seriously trying to posit that you and I are in the same proverbial doghouse, here?”

“Well… yeah. We both tried to protect her and just ended up pissing her off.”

Carmilla’s shaking her head. “Do human beings ever actually comprehend the things that happen around them, or is this just your own unique brand of idiocy?”

Danny folds her arms across her chest. “Excuse me?”

“Treating someone like they’re a helpless child is hardly the equivalent of being forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.”

“I wasn’t treating her like—”

“Oh please,” Carmilla interrupts, “You were practically demanding that she ask permission before she leaves the room.”

Danny clenches her jaw and digs the toe of her boot into the dirt, and her hands are deep in her pockets now. “I screwed up,” she admits, the words tired and heavy with regret. “There, I said it. Happy now?”

“What would you have done?” Carmilla blurts, and even in the obscured moonlight, Danny goes a little pale. “If it had been your choice, what would you have done?”

She stares hard at Carmilla for a long moment, then almost seems to sag as she takes a few steps to the side and leans backwards against a thick tree. “Probably something stupid that would’ve gotten us all killed,” she replies, but then she shrugs and chews her bottom lip. “Or maybe the exact same thing you did.”

Carmilla closes her eyes for a beat and shakes her head again. “I’m not sure whether to be relieved or horrified.”

“Jeez, am I really that awful?” Danny asks, a pout evident in her voice. “Look… all I ever wanted was for Laura to be happy. And maybe some of my decisions were really misguided, but my intentions were always…” She trails off and uses both hands to push her hair out of her face, then lets out a deep breath. “I never meant to hurt her.”

“We never do,” Carmilla murmurs, tilting her head back to see if she can make out any stars beyond the ceiling of tree branches. “You know, in another life, I think we might’ve been friends.”

Danny snorts. “An alternate universe where we don’t spend an entire semester fighting over a girl.”

“Perhaps we spend it fighting _for_ her, instead.”

“Yeah, save your seduction eyes for the enemy. They’ll never see it coming.”

The corner of Carmilla’s mouth actually lifts into some vague semblance of a smirk. “We’d be unstoppable.”

Now Danny shoves away from her tree and takes a few careful steps toward Carmilla. “Listen,” she says quietly, “if something goes down and you need—just, you can call me, okay? Either one of you; you _both_ can call me.” She shrugs her shoulders in surrender. “I know what I said before, when I—but make sure she knows that.”

“You say that as if she didn’t just tell me we were done.” Carmilla looks away from the sky and rubs the back of her neck. “As if she’s in the mood to listen to a word I say.”

“So make her listen.”

“What are you suggesting I do? Barge in and attempt to spew some reconciliatory speech before Perry drives a stake through my heart?”

Danny gives her a look. “You’re kidding, right? Barging in is kind of your signature move. And if you can grab _me_ by the throat before I lay a finger on you, I’m sure your Floor Don won’t be a problem.”

Carmilla arches an eyebrow. “So Danny Lawrence gives pep talks now?” she asks dryly.

“When life-or-death situations come up,” she answers with a shrug, and her tone is surprisingly nonchalant. “And also, I think… I think I’d feel better if you were there.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Danny shifts her weight from her heels to her toes and back again. “I may not trust you in the grand scheme of things, but I do trust you to keep her safe.”

Carmilla hopes her shock isn’t transparent. “Since when?”

“Since about five minutes ago.” Danny looks her square in the eye. “You’d do anything to protect her, right?”

“Looks that way,” Carmilla mutters, and glances back up at the sky; she hears Danny move to stand beside her and waits for more questions or comments, but the silence between them remains.

She thinks about Laura, about cocoa and dancing and that extraordinarily unexpected kiss on her cheek, and then about her mother, about coffins and bewitched necklaces and inevitably empty promises, and now Carmilla’s feet are moving again, much faster than before.

“Take care, Drusilla,” Danny calls after her.

Carmilla throws a lazy wave over her shoulder, and she’s more than a little glad that Danny can’t see the way she’s smiling.


End file.
